Donald J. Crammond, PhD

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Biography

Donald Crammond, PhD, joined the Center for Clinical Neurophysiology as a staff neurophysiologist in November 1998. Dr. Crammond received his undergraduate education in physiology at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and his graduate education in neurophysiology at the University of Toronto. After postdoctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin and later at the Université de Montréal, he was appointed visiting associate scientist at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md.

Dr. Crammond specializes in behavioral and systems-level neurophysiology, examining the neuronal substrates of higher cognitive processes such as movement planning and speech in and the functional interactions between, the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia, and the mechanisms underlying motor control and movement disorders.

Dr. Crammond is the associate director for microelectrode recording and subcortical mapping for the Movement Disorder Surgery Program at UPMC. Dr. Crammond is the chairman of the American Board of Neurophysiologic Monitoring (ABNM).

A complete list of Dr. Crammond's publications can be reviewed through the National Library of Medicine's publication database.

Research Activities

Dr. Crammond’s major clinical research interest is the study of basal ganglia and cerebral cortical interactions related to the control of movement in Parkinson’s disease, Dystonia and Essential Tremor. This is accomplished by recording neurophysiological data from micro-electrode recording (MER) in the basal ganglia and Electrocorticography (ECoG/LFP) from sensorimotor cortex, to examine the physiological relationship between basal ganglia and cortical structures. This research examines how these cortical and subcortical neural structures are involved in different aspects of movement planning and movement execution by having human subjects perform controlled behavioral choice-reaction time or speech tasks. The novel aspects are the study of how neural structures contribute to the evaluation of risk and motivation of rewarded task performance and the encoding of several aspects of speech production. As we understand more about basal ganglia physiology and cortical-basal ganglia interactions, we hope this will also help us to improve the targeting for optimal DBS placement within the basal ganglia to treat movement disorder patients and decrease the incidence of post-operative speech deficits. We are also examining how DBS placement affects post-operative DBS programming parameters and the therapeutic efficacy of DBS. We have recently discovered that subcortical neurophysiological mapping is not beneficial to DBS placement in Essential Tremor patients.

Dr. Crammond is also the principal investigator of a Copeland Foundation funded translational research project investigating the optimal graft environment for peripheral nerve regeneration in a rodent model of sciatic nerve regeneration, and is a co-investigator in a USAMRAA/AFIRM II funded translational research project investigating the rate of peripheral nerve regeneration in a non-human primate model of long median nerve gaps. These studies apply electrophysiological techniques of using Compound Muscle Action Potential (CMAP) nerve conduction studies, Somatosensory Evoked Potentials (SSEPs) and trans-cranial Motor Evoked Potentials (Tc-MEPs) in order to research the differential effect of various nerve growth factors on sensory versus motor nerves axonal regeneration.

Dr. Crammond’s ongoing clinical research interest is to review clinical outcome data to determine the impact of various modalities of Intra-Operative Neurophysiological Monitoring (IONM) to prevent and/or reduce iatrogenic injury and to use neurophysiological mapping of the basal ganglia and cerebral cortex to map motor and language functions in various neurosurgical procedures. For example, in order to map and locate eloquent cortical areas in tumor resection, epilepsy and movement disorder surgeries.